It's Not Your Investment in Her; It's Hers in You

Boyo-

Yes, there's a pretty clear one re: investment - basically, if you've been asking for more and more investment from a girl, and she's been giving it to you, but doesn't feel like the interaction is progressing forward fast enough, you like her enough, or you're rewarding her enough for her effort, you'll see a gradual cooling off of her excitement toward you and increasing amounts of hesitancy to comply, eventually turning into full-on resistance.

The solution for that one is simple enough... when you notice this happening, show a bit more interest in her before you ask for more investment.

And, once she's warmed up a bit, it's usually time to move things forward.

Chase

Anon-

Yes, a girl crying over you / getting furious over you is the dark side of emotional investment, you might call it. The more invested in you a woman is, the more extreme her emotional swings will be, and every time she hits an extreme (high or low), she's investing a great deal more emotional energy into you.

There was a guy I learned some things from a while back who would often start off interactions with really hot, aloof girls by making an over-the-top remark that really upset them, and some of them would fly off the handle and try to get him kicked out of nightclubs and things like that, but he would then go up to them, smooth things out, and end up in bed with them a little while later. I've had some interactions go this way, and I even had a long-term relationship start off this way, with a girl seriously insulted by me and hating my guts, and later a very emotionally invested girlfriend. I wouldn't recommend deliberately seeking to do this - it introduces an element of randomness that's very much outside your control - but when it happens, if you get back on even footing again and avoid full-on auto-rejection (this is most likely to happen if you show her convincingly that what she got upset about was a misunderstanding, and she realizes she misinterpreted what you said / did), attraction has spiked to a very high level and you're able to move things very quickly with her. In relationships, this leads to stronger bonds and loyalty... when you're able to turn things around, that is.

Chase

D-Rock-

Yes, that's right - when a girl likes you, she'll usually start auto-investing to a degree. How far / extreme she goes in this depends a great deal on her own confidence, subtlety (or lack of subtlety), and concern for appearances. e.g., a girl who's very lady-like and concerned about her appearances you'll see beaming with excitement, but she'll largely control herself from going too crazy investing. Conversely, a girl who's less restrained will start asking you lots of questions, going into long expository answers when you ask her things, actively seeking to relate to you ("Totally!" "OMG, I SO do that too!" "No way, isn't that crazy? That happens ALL the time!"), or even shooing away her friends when they interfere and working to move things forward with you.

Chase

Anon-

I'd advise skipping birthday parties when your agenda is to connect with the person who's party it is (unless it's a small outing / gathering with 10 or fewer people attending), simply because she's going to be the center of attention, with all eyes on her, which makes her super sensitive to being seen with any one person for too long ("Will people think we're together?!") or doing anything too crazy. Gifts for special occasions are okay, but more meaningful gifts are ones that aren't tied to any special occasion, and are just something you picked up, say, traveling somewhere. Meaning trumps price; if you get a girl a $3 statue of her favorite animal that looks really cool, that's better than a $300 piece of jewelry she's going to throw into her jewelry box and never look at again. As for flowers, my personal opinion is these are too trite and overused to have any real meaning; although, if you can find a flower that has some certain meaning between you and her, I could see it being a worthwhile gift.

On being likable - see this article: "Bring the Energy: Being the Life of the Party." It really comes down to having something to offer more than being just "there" and another face in the crowd... you must provide some benefit to people, whether excitement, energy, inspiration, advice, connections, humor, great stories, or something else - that makes them want to have you around. If you aren't contributing, they'll start feeling like you're just a hanger on, and will begin to work to separate themselves from you.

With something like being a photographer, the right activity can put you in touch with all kinds of different people and really help you break outside your comfort zone in numerous ways. So if you are, say, a photographer, you can find that now it's easy for you to get a special status in nightclubs as a club photographer, and you have an easy excuse to go up and talk to girls, plus you have a whole subculture of photography chicks you connect with on a much deeper level, and you also have an easy excuse to get women alone with you, in scanty clothing or in the nude (for a photo shoot). There are all kinds of things like this - many in the arts, many working in the nightlife or acting or modeling industries; anything where women of interest to you congregate, once you become a part of that scene, it allows you to develop yourself and the people you connect with in a direction you hadn't before been able to. And of course, there's always the benefit of having additional reference points and interacting with loads of new and different kinds of people - this advances your ability to connect with whoever you meet more easily and rapidly, and gets you increasingly comfortable in lots of different social situations (not to mention more aware of what's needed in each of them).

Chase

Troy-

When you have icky feelings about certain things, you should realize these are actually fears of some sort or other, and simply decide if you're going to confront them and overcome them, or if they're there for a reason and you're simply going to accept them and live with them. If you decide you don't want to continue feeling this way, then start making yourself kiss the girls you feel weird about kissing, and you'll find that with time this gradually falls away (as your brain realizes that the world doesn't come to an end when you kiss those girls you were on the fence about kissing before).

Re: approaching in high school, I really can't give you any good advice, I'm afraid - when I was in high school, I'd have girls approach ME from time to time, but I don't think I approached a single girl those entire four years - wasn't my area of expertise back then, sad to say. On dealing with rejection though, I'd recommend checking out this article: "How to Act When a Girl Rejects You", however the emotional aspect might be harder in high school, depending on what your goal was (if it was "Just ask this girl out, and then at least one way or the other I'll KNOW, and I'll have DONE it!" then you'll be thrilled you did it no matter the outcome; if it was "Get this girl and make her my girlfriend", you'll be pretty bummed if she turns down your date request).

Chase

Tyler-

Yeah... I'm pretty good at doing things on the cheap without having to sacrifice too much in quality or location these days.

Airfare you can find some good deals on if you look, and there are various travel hacks to save on tickets - fly on a Thursday, for instance - usually the cheapest day of the week to fly; use a flight search service like Adioso that shows you a number of adjoining days to see what's least expensive; book multi-stop trips with long layovers in flights on the way to where you're going - e.g., if a ticket from Munich to New York costs $700, you can usually find one that goes Munich -> London -> New York for the same price, and have your Munich -> London flight on one day and the London -> New York flight 3 weeks later.

Hotels you can often find single rooms in good, cheap hostels, or budget hotels that are still nice and right in the city center but that aren't on travel websites (they're not technological enough, or don't have a marketing budget), and because of that their prices remain lower (you can find them by searching for reviews on Google or TripAdvisor, or, best way, just booking a night in a hotel for your first night there, and walking around to find an alternative hotel for your subsequent nights after arrival).

On both hotels and cars in the U.S. I'm a big fan of Priceline's bidding option - you can sometimes get things for surprisingly good prices with this. When renting rental cars, always go for "economy" (the cheapest option), because they never have these in-stock and always upgrade you to mid-sized anyway (which you'd pay twice as much for if you booked it outright); I've rented cars dozens of times, always "economy", and only actually got an economy-sized car once. Might be different if you're arriving Sunday night / Monday morning like most business travelers, but if you're getting in on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday you'll always be upgraded.

Food you can do cheap if you find a grocery store in the area and buy food there instead of always going to restaurants. And if you're planning on being in a place for longer than a month, it can make sense to rent an apartment rather than stay at a hotel - renting an apartment even over the short-term can be two or three times less even than a budget hotel.

Friends in various cities across the globe helps out immensely - if I'm going somewhere longer-term, I prefer going somewhere where I know someone, whom I'll crash with for a while while getting situated, which does cut expenses a good bit, and whose brain I can pick to figure out how things work in that town to do things without burning a hole in one's pocket. I'm a good houseguest, at least I think, and judging by the fact that people are usually extremely welcoming in inviting me to come back second, third, or more times, I imagine whatever good I bring outweighs the imposition.

On budgets, I keep a pretty close eye on expenses, and keep them under a certain amount. I know what I have on credit cards, and what I have in the bank, and these need to always at least stay even from month to month, if not less on cards and more in the bank. It's important to have a good cushion of cash in the bank too, in case of emergencies.

Last but not least, I'm a big believer in, "If you need more money, make more money." Do what you can to keep costs reasonable, but if you're spending more time clipping coupons than increasing your income stream, you're doing things wrong.

Chase

Anon-

High school's one arena where I can't offer much in terms of advice on results. I can certainly tell you how to get REACTIONS in high school... that was my life back then: how to get people reacting the way I wanted them to. As far as what you might consider solid, controllable results - friends, dates, girlfriends - I can't help there.

That said, I can tell you what got me people inviting me to parties and girls asking me on dates in high school was a large degree of social dominance - being "above" every situation, always with something witty to say, but not over-the-top or goofy; with interesting, engaging stories about doing crazy things that were more "adult" or "real" than most kids were experiencing in their lives - more adventurous; lots of participation in class, giving both accurate answers to hard questions, and the odd humorous remark here and there designed to point out something amusing or nonsensical that would get both students and teacher laughing; peacocked clothes and fashion sense that made me clearly and visibly stand out; no problem being alone or by myself; very slow movements, lots of pauses. You'd probably want to combine that with some kind of action-taking... but that's where my high school advice runs out, as it were.

Chase

Yink-

The problem with getting back after you broke up is, yes, the spark either isn't there at all, or fades quickly if it is. When you break up, then get back together, the communication essentially is, "I thought I could find something better... turns out I can't. So I guess I'll settle for you," which is a whole lot different from, "I'm with you because you're the most amazing person ever, and I don't know what I'd do without you!"

Whether you break up or stay together is your own call... but, trapped in a relationship that isn't going anywhere and you don't feel that magic, it's probably going to happen sooner or later. My vote'd be for sooner - but, your relationship, your decision.

Chase

Anon-

First, see this article: "Why to NOT Meet Girls on Facebook" for why you do not want to add women on Facebook that you aren't at least sleeping with (and probably not even then) unless you have an absolutely KILLER profile (and even then maybe not), or unless you only want them as platonic friends and have zero interest in them.

Second, not sure where you're meeting these girls, but the only time it's acceptable to ask a girl out over Facebook is if you met her on Facebook. If you met her in real life and asked her out online, it looks very weak to her - as if you were too scared or uncertain to ask her out in real life, and had to retreat to the veil of the Internet. It's a discernible attraction killer when a real life guy asks her out over the web instead of in person. If you're meeting girls in real life, follow the advice here: "How to Get a Phone Number from a Girl Every Time You Ask" and here: "How to Ask a Girl Out and Always Get a "Yes"" and ask girls out in person and get the phone number then and there.

On women flaking / not responding - follow the advice here: "What to Do When Girls Flake" and here: "What to Do When a Girl Doesn't Text Back."

As far as apologizing for asking for her phone number - never explain yourself or apologize... it casts you as clearly lower social value than her, which removes whatever attraction might have been left at that point and places you so far down on the social totem pole that you probably won't make the cut for her friend zone.

If a girl says she's going to do something, then doesn't do it, either remind her to do it in a cool way, "Hey, what's your phone number again? Thought were were going to meet up, but we never connected. Let me know where to contact you at," or don't mention it at all and just be normal with her and make like it never happened... then try again later on another high point.

Chase

Flames-

Sure - the closer you are with someone, the more wiggle room you have with investment, since your roles are better defined and small differences in investment don't matter quite so much here or there.

Obviously, big things still apply - you buying someone a plane ticket out of the blue may shift things, or her doing so for you may; and gradual trends of one party investing more and more than the other will gradually shift the balance of power as well.

But on the small scale and in the here-and-now, small amounts of investment in established dynamics don't have anywhere near the weight they do with people who've only just met.

Chase

Tornado-

Happy to hear it. Sounds like you are moving on from a girl who probably wasn't someone you'd want to be terribly involved with anyway (from a rational, non-emotional point of view in any event).

With very pushy girls, this can sometimes be a sign of interest on the girl's part - it may be the only way she knows how to try to get time alone with you. If you get things to the point where you're telling her, "Bring your laptop over to my place and bring me some chocolate cake and it's a deal," and she goes for it, then you're helping her out, getting compliance from her so that it's on your terms, and she's coming to be alone with you... you're in pretty good shape. You may not escalate then (you'll have to feel her out on that one), but at the very least you ought to have an easy time setting up the next date (and if she's sexual / aroused, close things out then and there).

On asking a girl to a last-minute bite and her saying she's full - totally normal. If you ask people to do things they might not want to do, even if they like YOU, they'll sometimes respond with something logical / automatic if they aren't in an over-emotional state of mind. The best way of getting around this is throwing options at her: "Hey, how about a late night snack or a late night drink?" so she can choose whichever one better suits her mood, or give you a more general rejection and you'll know it's you she's rejecting rather than the date idea.

On texting / calling - I think you're in India if I remember right, which might be different, but I'd usually steer clear of "good morning" texts like the plague, unless you want a bullet-train-fast ticket to the nice guy friend zone ("Oh, how nice! Another good morning text. What a dear he is!"). An unpredictable calling / texting schedule is best, and you want to have established that the two of you are meeting up for a date before getting contact information to make life infinitely easier. Barring that though, use phone calls if you need to build rapport, and use texting to set up dates.

These will help for your situation of having to call / text to build rapport prior to asking out:

• Tactics Tuesdays: Making the First Phone Call to a Girl
• Text Girls to Success: Phone Secrets Part I
• Call Girls to Success: Phone Secrets Part II
• Text Message Flirting
  

Chase

Jacques-

Chat apps are instruments of the friend zone devil... they're an amazing way for women to rotate you into their friend zones. If you must use chat, I recommend using a chat where you can be on "invisible" mode so that no one knows when you're online, and use a chat service that doesn't show others when you've received their messages. Otherwise, you'll need to take time to become a chat pro, which is a rather different skill set from moving things forward with girls in the flesh / phone / text, and rather not what most people think it is (e.g., NOT flirty / witty banter, rapport building, or any of that... it's mostly unavailability, scarcity, and occasional witty responses followed by long silences and only getting back to her right before or after she starts panicking about not hearing from you, or sometimes not getting back to her at all, dropping the thread, and messaging her with something totally unrelated much later).

Assuming she can see that you're online and see that you've read her messages (the two worst things in chat, but I don't know your service so let's assume the worst), the best thing to do in this situation is ignore the second message, then message her later with something like, "Hey, what's crackin." When she responds, keep your answers short, ask few (or no) questions, and basically treat it as a chance for her to chase after you, ask you questions, and invest more in you. When she gets tired of doing that, let the conversation die naturally... you have nothing to gain by investing in her / chasing after her via chat (you'll only make it into her friend zone and make her feel secure that you're in the bag).

Chase

Anon-

See these articles, on just this topic:

• Secrets to Getting Girls:  Chase Framing
• The 9 Secrets to Being a Sexual Man
• How to Use the Sexual Frame to Turn Women On
• Sexual Framing: More on Using This to Get Girls
• Sexual Tension: 7 Ways to Make Women Excited and Randy
• How to Use Sex Talk to Set a Sexual Tone and Mood
• Threesome How-To: Step-by-Step to Get Two Girls
  
• Assumptions as Tools of Attraction
  

Chase

Anon-

One of the unfortunate things that happens with a lot of men who are naturally good with women and learn game on their own is that they hang onto women a great deal even when they themselves are not fully into the relationship or are seeing other women. They understand women and are good enough with them to make girls stick around in relationships with them, but their hearts aren't really in it (they'd rather be meeting new girls, usually)... they hang onto women either because they like the girl and don't really want to see her go, or they view hanging onto her as a challenge they want to win at, or it's just what they do - they tell women what they want to hear, even if the words don't have much meaning for them. It's how they get girls in bed (tell her what she wants to hear), and how they keep them (tell her what she wants to hear).

Men who are good with women normally want to keep women "available" to them, and often will do whatever they think is necessary to have them stay that way, including telling (sometimes multiple at the same time) women that they love them and care about them. Usually they do, to some extent, but the emotion frequently isn't felt to nearly the same degree as it is by the girl (to be fair, emotions are never equal... someone's always more in love: you, or him), and often this is just part of a scarcity mentality - they're somewhat afraid to lose her (though not as much as a less dominant man with fewer options with women is).

As for what kind of guy you go for, there are three more or less stereotypical choices:

1. The dominant, high status guy who's still playing the field - he's exciting and aloof, but he's not going to commit, and will leave you feeling emotional ups and downs

2. The non-dominant, lower status guy who's grateful to be with you - he's a little boring and maybe too safe, but if you want a more placid relationship experience, he can provide this

3. The dominant, high status guy who's ready to settle down - if you want a settled relationship, this is generally a guy like this in his later 20s to mid 30s; if you want marriage, this is a guy like this usually anywhere from early 30s to mid 40s; depends on the guy

Most women seem to switch back and forth between the first two (wanting exciting, then burning out with this guy, breaking up, and going with the safe, placid guy... but eventually getting bored of him, and going back and being with someone exciting again), until they reach the age where they want to settle down when, if they're lucky, and especially appealing, they snap up one of the #3 guys, or if not, they settle for a #2 guy, who starts to look a lot more appealing as all the good guys marry up and the dating pool starts to diminish.

There are also middle-road guys - guys who are fairly dominant and high status, but more settled / monogamously inclined, whom you'll be not so bored by as with the #2 guys, but not so crazy as with the #1 guys. These are the kinds of men I see most attractive, feminine, high status women go for - the guys are attractive enough that they're satisfied, but not going to drag them through an emotional wringer, either. Basically, look for guys who pretty strong and attractive, but who are more or less calm, serial monogamists, and you'll be able to pick these guys out (if it's what you want).

Chase

Anon-

Sure, I understand that. If you're naturally a more fearful personality (someone more oriented to threats than opportunities), which I grew up as as well, things you don't have much familiarity yet with come with a whole host of crippling fears. I had a social phobia until I was in college (in some ways, until a few years after - I still felt intimidated in many social situations until I'd been hitting nightclubs and joining social circles for a couple of years), and it took me a few years of traveling to shake most of my paranoia over that (afraid I was going to get to my hotel and wouldn't have a room - THEN WHAT??? - afraid I'd miss my flight - THE WORLD IS OVER!!! - afraid I'd get robbed or run out of money or be stuck somewhere I couldn't get back from).

The only thing you can do is confront these fears - force yourself to socialize; force yourself to travel. You can find ways to ease into it - the first real international trip I made was with a tour group, where everything was already taken care of, and after that, I always traveled with friends for a while, so always had comrades in arms if anything went south (but had to face a whole new round of paranoia to vanquish when I started solo-traveling); with socializing, well, start talking to everyone everywhere, and instead of quitting, ask yourself why people are reacting the way they are and what you can change to get them to react how you want. Make small talk, and move up to meeting groups, and eventually approaching new women you'd like to get to know.

Confronting fears is something where you've just got to do it until the fear goes away. Otherwise, you sit around waiting for it to leave forever on its own, and it never does.

And Sri Lanka - I know it. I used to watch Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World and Mysterious Universe when I was growing up - Clarke would always note in the program that he was coming to you from Sri Lanka.

Chase